"And what says our Roman beauty?" he asked. "She has come boldly and far to see her enemies. Who knows but she has a boon to beg."

Again Marcia noted disturbance under Calavius' smile. He was wondering at the general's knowledge. Then he realized that Mago's report must be its basis, and his face cleared.

"Yes, truly, I have a boon to ask," replied Marcia, fixing her great eyes upon the bearded front, stern through its smiles. "It is that you will spare one house in Italy from ravage and destruction."

"And where may this house be?" he asked in bantering tones. "We shall leave many standing, but this one most surely of all."

"It is upon the brow of the Palatine Hill—" she began, and then a burst of applause gave notice that the compliment had struck home. "It is my father's," she concluded, blushing.

Calavius was in ecstasy over the graceful tact of his protege. No Capuan or Greek could have done better. Hannibal eyed her with a curious expression, half admiring, half doubtful.

"I grant the boon—freely," he said. Then, fixing her with his gaze, he went on, "And when will you claim it?"

"The son of Hamilcar knows best," replied Marcia, casting down her eyes, and again she felt the approval of her host and his friends.

That Hannibal was pleased and flattered was evident, and yet there was a certain reserve in his manner. Possibly he suspected that she wished to provoke an announcement of his plans; perhaps an even deeper insight led him near to a fuller conception of her purpose.

"Yes, it is truly for us to say," he said loudly, glancing around the board; then, turning quickly to Marcia: "I understand that you counselled delay until spring to my brother, Mago. Why?"

So frank a question, so different from all that had been told of the more than Oriental craft of the Carthaginians, and one that went so straight to the motive of her presence, threw Marcia into some confusion. Calavius noticed it, and, fearing lest she might say something to do away with the impression of her former tact, he came to the rescue.

"Surely we shall not insult my Lord Bacchus by a council of war in his presence?" but Hannibal waved his hand toward him and looked fixedly at Marcia.

"Goddesses may speak on all subjects, at all times; and the gods smile."

"That my words," she began, with eyes still cast down, "were deemed worthy to be borne to my Lord, is too much honour. That he should deem them worthy of thought, is beyond the dream of mere woman." Then, glancing up and smiling wistfully into his face, she went on: "Know, that whatever of judgment born of knowledge of the place and the men has come to me, a girl,—that and more is for the service of the great general of Carthage,—the benignant liberator of Italy."

"Why do you advise delay?" asked Hannibal again, and the eyes of Maharbal glittered, as he leaned over from the other table. "There are those who say I have delayed too long already."

"For this," replied Marcia, boldly; "that you may save your soldiers and your allies; that they may lie in rest and luxury, and that, ere springtime, the cities of the Latin Name, yes, truly, and the very rabble of Rome, shall come to you on their knees for leave to bear the horseheads along the Sacred Way, up the Capitoline slope—"

"If in the spring, why not now?"

Maharbal and Hannibal-the-Fighter made a clucking sound of assent; Hasdrubal and the other guests seemed indifferent, but the Capuans were hanging on Marcia's words.

"Because the time is not ripe—" she began.

"Words!" cried her questioner, cutting off her speech; "I asked, why?"

Frightened at his vehemence, but put to it of necessity, she answered:—

"Because there are strifes and bickerings—at Rome—throughout the Latin Name—that must soon bear fruit of civil strife. The nobles grind and hold to their privileges; the commons serve and starve and look to Carthage for aid. How shall these things grow better, while you hold the garden of Italy—while the Greeks of the south and the Samnites and the men of the soil gather behind you on one side, and the Gauls and Etruscans muster in the north? The water is eating at the mole; soon the waves will lash up and sweep it from its foundations."

Hannibal eyed her closely for a moment. Then he said: "There are those at Rome and among the Latin Name who tell me otherwise. They are good men, and they know. Perhaps I have been even too cautious. You are young and beautiful. Hold fast to matters suited to youth and beauty, and leave the conduct of wars and statecraft to men." Turning to Stenius, he went on, "If this Leucadian wine of yours, my Stenius, were let into the veins of those who lie dead at Cannae, they would be fit to rise and do battle again."

Stenius bowed and smiled; Marcia grew red and then pale with shame and vexation, seeing how her plots were like to fall and crush her; but, at this moment, the voice of Hannibal-the-Fighter rose from the other table. Flushed with wine, he was boasting of his slain. "Four at Trebia," he cried out, "seven at Trasimenus, eighteen at Cannae—but all men. It is better to slay the wolves' whelps, if only to teach women that it is no longer wise to bring forth Romans. I—I who speak have already killed eleven boys—ah! but you must wait till we enter Rome. Then will be the day when they shall build new cities in Hades!"

The Carthaginians heard him with indifference; the Capuans, all save Perolla, applauded nervously; and Marcia grew sick at heart and mad with a rage that could almost have strangled the giant as he reclined.

"And now," began Ninius, mildly, when there was a moment's silence, "that we may the better enjoy what is to come, there are baths and attendants; and the red feather will make way for new feastings at the end of two hours."

Slaves had run in to assist the diners from their couches; the Capuans, with dreams of relief, refreshment, and re-repletion; the Carthaginians, bored, but striving to be polite and to follow the customs of their entertainers. Even Hannibal, while his smile was half a frown, permitted himself to be led away.

Filled with disgust and despair, Marcia felt herself all unfit to begin a new revel—one that was to be made possible by loathsome practices, as yet unknown at Rome, and which bade fair to end in aimless and hideous debauchery. The women were but warming to their part, when the summons of Stenius Ninius had proclaimed a truce with Bacchus and Venus—a truce with promise of more deadly battle to be joined. She had seen glances hot with wine and lust, claspings of hands, loosened cyclas, and more lascivious reclinings. The gloomy Perolla had yielded a little to the soft influences, and even Hannibal seemed to force himself to toying, if only in the name of courtesy; while, through it all, and more and more as the light of day advanced, Marcia felt the eyes of Iddilcar, priest of Melkarth, burning into her soul. He at least gave no heed to nearer blandishments, and terror and loathing filled her in equal measure.

A faintness—a sudden weakness born of her recent journey—served for excuse, which Calavius seemed not unwilling to voice, and, surrounded by a guard of slaves, her litter bore her back to his house, through streets littered with drunken men and fluctuant with the figured robes of courtesans.



VI.

ALLIES.

Night had come again, before Marcia could arouse herself from the deep sleep with which exhaustion of mind and body had overwhelmed her. She remembered the scenes of the banquet as the phantasms of a dream—strange and terrible; for her thoughts were slow to gather the threads and weave the woof. Only a feeling of failure, of fruitless abasement, was ever present. Hannibal had admired her, but, proof against any controlling attraction, he had put her words aside with little short of contempt. A dread, even, lest the strange acumen of this wonderful man had pierced her mask, and that her very motive and mission were already suspected, was not lacking to add dismay to discouragement. Such thoughts were but wretched company, and they brought with them a vague conception of her own vain egotism in imagining the possibility of other outcome. She tried to sleep again, but could not. What mattered it though, by some shifting of hours, her day had become night and her night day! She must arise and talk with some one, if it were only the host whom she so heartily despised.

Attendants entered at her summons, and the refreshment of the bath and the labour of the toilet were once more passed through. Then, dismissing the slaves, she walked out alone into the garden and sat down on a softly cushioned seat of carved marble. A fountain plashed soothingly in the foliage near by, the stars were shining again, while, from without, the jarring sounds of the city came to her ears.

How long she sat, awake yet thinking of nothing, dull and dazed, she could not tell. Then she was aroused by a sandalled step upon the pavement. A man was standing before her, whose face, despite its youthful contours, was deep-lined and melancholy. He was short of stature and slenderly though gracefully built, and his black curls clustered over brow and eyes that seemed rather those of a poet or a dreamer than of a man of action. In the sombre, dark blue garments of mourning, without ornaments or jewels, so different from the gay banqueting robes in which she had last seen him, Marcia gazed a moment, before she recognized Perolla, the son of Pacuvius.

"You are not pretty to-night, Scylla," he said tauntingly, "though you left us early. There are dark circles under the eyes that looked kindly at the enemy of your country."

Marcia flushed crimson, and he went on: "Yes; I watched you smiling and ogling, but it will take greater traitors than you to snare him. He is like Minos, in that he did not reach out to take from your hands the purple lock shorn from your father's head: he is not like him otherwise: he is not just, and he will not give honourable terms."

"You, at least, are faithful to Rome?" said Marcia, slowly, and ignoring his insults.

"Can you ask?" he answered; "is it that you wish to betray me? Well, then, know truly that I have betrayed myself to your heart's content. Do you not see the mourning garments I wear for my city's faithlessness and for her coming ruin? Have you not heard how my father dragged me from the side of Decius Magius in the market place that I might attend the banquet?—ah! but you have not heard how I had planned to startle them all."

Marcia began to wonder whether she was talking with a madman.

"Shall I tell?"

She made a sign of assent.

"It was toward evening—they have but just risen from the tables now. Then, it was to seek the red feathers for the third time; but I led my father back among the rose bushes and showed him a sword which I had girt to my side, beneath my tunic. 'This,' said I, 'shall win us pardon from Rome. Look you, when we return, I will plunge it into the Carthaginian's breast.'"

Marcia bent forward eagerly.

"And then," he went on, "my father bound my arms to my sides, with his own around me, and wept and talked of our recent pledges to these foreigners. 'Can they outweigh our ancient pledges to Rome?' I answered. So he pleaded how the attendants would surely cut me down, and mentioned Hannibal's look, which he affirmed I would not be able to confront; but I laughed and made little of these things. Then he spoke of the hospitable board, which I admitted had something of reason; and, finally, when he had declared that the sword must reach Hannibal only through his own breast, then, at last, from filial duty, mark you, I threw the weapon from me, telling him that he had betrayed his country thrice: in revolting from Rome, in allying with foreigners, and, now, in turning aside the instrument of escape. Then we returned to the banquet, but my father trembled, and ate and drank no more. There, now, is a story to tell your city's destroyer. If you betray me, perhaps he may yet love you."

Marcia viewed him sternly.

"Truly your father was right, when he said you were ill in mind."

"Yes, ill in mind and in heart."

"How, then, do you not recognize one whose heart is sicker than your own?"

Perolla looked at her inquiringly, and she went on:—

"You have a city that has been false to itself, and is in danger of punishment—a father, too, if you will. My city has already suffered every evil but destruction: my brother and he to whom Juno was about to lead me have been killed by these pulse-eaters. Are such things the benefits that go to make friendship and love for the slayers? Say, rather, hate and the craving for revenge."

"Yes," said Perolla, moodily; "they are indeed evils, but less than mine, in that they are passed—"

"And is Rome safe, do you think?" she asked quickly.

"Rome will conquer," he said doggedly, "unless there be many more traitors like you."

"Fool!" she cried, grasping his wrist. "Can you not see—you who claim to be a philosopher and to have Greek blood?—you, at least, should have understood my words."

He gazed at her vacantly, and she began to regret her vehemence. It came to her mind that this was not altogether a safe man to trust with her secret. Faithful he was, no doubt; but a fool might be even more dangerous than a traitor. Still, she had said too much to be silent, and she felt the need of some ally to whom she could talk—upon whom she could at least pretend to lean when the weight of her burden was heaviest.

"I have told you what I have lost—what I dread to lose. Now learn what I am here to gain. For many days after the black news of Cannae, I heard them talking in my father's house—talking of the advance of the insolent victors and of the paltry defence we could oppose, the certain destruction that awaited us. Still they were brave—old men and boys. The soldiers were dead, but we set to work training new—shaping them alike out of youth and age and bondmen; and the slayers of our citizens delayed, and we gained strength and courage. In every temple of the twelve gods it was the same prayer by day and night: 'Grant us delay. Grant us that the winter may find him in the south!' At last came the news that he was advancing to Capua, and rumours of a Carthaginian party in the city. From Capua, seized with all its engines of war, was but a few days to Rome. Then I took a resolve and made a vow: tell me, am I beautiful?"

"Beautiful as Venus."

"Know, then, that I have dedicated this beauty to her, that she may guard Rome and avenge me upon Rome's enemies."

He shook his head stupidly.

"Minerva does not favour me, lady," he replied; "for I do not understand your words."

"Listen!" she went on, with the earnestness of desperation, "He shall love me—he or one who can sway him—and they shall play the laggards here, until the winter gives us time—and time brings safety."

He understood her now, but still he shook his head.

"If you speak truth," he said slowly, "you speak foolishness as well. Hannibal will love no mistress but Carthage, and there is no man living who shall sway him by a hair's breadth. Now I see why you spoke to him of plots at Rome and of the wisdom of delay. Ah! a woman to make game of him!" and he threw back his head and laughed. "Do you imagine he has not divined your plot? Give him your beauty if you will. He will take it, doubtless, if he have time, and march north forthwith, after you have confessed your little plottings beneath the hot tweezers. Only one thing shall stay him—steel,—and in the hands of man—not blandishments in the mouth of a girl."

Marcia was in despair.

"And is there no help," she cried, "for me, a Roman woman, from you, a friend of Rome? Surely we shall be stronger together, even if our plots are different. Two plans are better than one."

Before he could frame his answer they heard footsteps coming toward them, and then a man, enveloped in the brown cloak of a slave, pushed aside the foliage and glided out into the moonlight. Perolla, wheeling about, had half drawn his sword, while Marcia shrunk back into the shadow.

"Put up your sword, my Perolla," said the newcomer, speaking in low tones and throwing aside his mantle.

"Decius Magius, by all the gods!" cried the young man; "but why are you disguised?"

"Because, my friend," said Magius, slowly "Capua is no longer free; because spies of the Carthaginian and of our senate are watching my house, making ready to seize me. Decius Magius can no longer walk in his own city, clad in his own gown, and to-morrow, doubtless, he cannot walk at all. Therefore I wish to speak with you, and I have put on this disguise in order that I might gain your house unobserved, and that your father might not die of fright, learning me to be here."

"But how did you enter? how find me?"

"I entered, my Perolla, because your porter, like every slave in Capua, is drunk to-night, and because the boy whom he left to keep the gate was only enough awake to mumble that you were in the garden."

Perolla frowned. Then, suddenly, he remembered Marcia, concerning whom his suspicions were not yet entirely removed, and he raised his hand in warning.

"There is a woman here—a Roman woman, who tells a strange story," he whispered. "It is better to be discreet."

"The time for discretion is past for Decius Magius," said the other, wearily. "Let him at least speak freely upon his last night of freedom."

Marcia came forward.

"Is it permitted a Roman maid to honour a Campanian who is true to his city's faith?"

"Assuredly, daughter," replied Magius, quietly. She could not see his face except that it was stern and gray-bearded; but, kneeling down beside him, she took his hand and poured out the story of her life, her sorrow, her resolve, and its prosecution. Here, at least, was a man upon whose faith and judgment she could rely, and his manner grew more gentle as she made an end of speaking.

"So you doubted her truth, my Perolla," he said softly. "That is because you have not felt her hand tremble, and because you are too young and too much of a philosopher to judge of the honesty of a woman's face. The same instinct that tells me, doubtless warned Hannibal also that this was not a courtesan, much less an immodest woman well born, and, least of all, a coward who would flee her city, or a traitress who would betray it. You will know more of such things, my Perolla, when you learn to study them less." Then, turning to Marcia, he went on: "What you have designed, my daughter, is noble and worthy of your race—and yet, while I commend, I am slow to encourage. Are you strong to carry your sacrifice to the uttermost?"

Marcia shuddered.

"Yes, if there be need," she said, in a low voice; "I look to no marriage now. Is not the Republic worthy of our best?"

"It is a hard thing," he said, doubtfully, "for a woman well born and modest to belong to a man she hates."

"But it is easy to die, my father, as died Lucretia."

Decius Magius looked at her. Several times his lips moved as if about to speak, and, once, he turned away sharply for a moment, as if to gaze up into the night.

"Tell me, my father," she said earnestly, "do you give me no hope? Is not my beauty worth the purchase of a few paltry months? And then comes the winter, bringing safety."

Still Magius said nothing for several minutes, and when he spoke, it was in harsh, quick tones.

"Yes, it is all possible, as you say it."

"Hannibal to surrender his plans for a woman?" cried Perolla, scornfully. "Surely, my Decius, you jest. Do you not know him—that only the gods can turn him from his purpose?"

Marcia had wheeled about with flashing eyes and faced the last speaker.

"You have shown me the way," she cried. "It is the gods who shall delay him."

Perolla gazed at her in astonishment, as at one gone mad, but Magius nodded and frowned.

"It is the best chance," he said slowly, "the only one."

"Still Minerva does not favour me," said Perolla, shaking his head; but Marcia went on in a high, nervous voice and with a gayety that made the older man draw his cloak up to his face in pity:—

"Come, my philosopher, you are indeed stupid to-night. If you did not observe it at the house of the Ninii, you should have heard me just now when I told the story of the banquet to my lord Decius. It is Iddilcar, the priest of Melkarth, who shall bring his god to be my ally—Rome's ally: Iddilcar, who could not so much as take his eyes from me, through all their feasting. There is the man who will prefer my beauty, even to his god's favour; and surely your Hannibal will not wage war against the auspices."

The face of Magius was still shaded by his cloak, and he said nothing; but over the features of the younger man came strange expressions: first amazement, then horror, then a look which had something of horror but more of yearning. He held out his hands in supplication.

"No—no," he cried. "You shall not do it. You are too beautiful. First I hated you, when I dreamed you to be but a courtesan traitress. Now—now—O gods favour me! Listen! you shall not do it. It is I who will kill him—yes, and you also first," and, turning suddenly away, he staggered. Then, as Magius raised his hand to support him, he shook himself free and ran furiously into the house.

Marcia turned to Magius in astonishment, and he smiled sadly.

"Even philosophers are not proof," he said; "and you are very beautiful—and he is young—and half a Greek." She blushed, and the grim senator took her hand. "May the gods grant, my daughter, that your sacrifice be not for nothing. You have spoken wisdom; but he—he is a madman. As for me, I am as one who is dead. Farewell."

He dropped her hand, and she felt, rather than heard or saw him go; only her voice would not obey her when she strove to detain him, if but for a moment: the only man in Capua whom she could honour—upon whom she could rely. Surely he would not desert her thus?—yes, truly, he was gone.

Then she ran several steps in the direction he had taken, and called, though she dared not call his name, until a female attendant came hurrying to answer her.

"My lord, Perolla," said the girl, "had but just rushed out into the street, as if possessed of a daimon. As for a strange slave, she had observed no one; but if such there was, doubtless he had slipped by the porter's boy—who was worthless."

Marcia groped her way to her sleeping apartment, harshly brushing aside an offer of aid. Once alone, she threw herself down upon the couch and burst into a torrent of moans and sobs.

The girl, who had followed hesitatingly, listened in the hallway, nodding her head with conscious satisfaction. "And so the Roman women loved, for all they were said to be so grand and stern. What a fool this one was, though, to prefer the son to the father, who was much richer, and who, being old, would doubtless realize the necessity of being more generous."

And she went back to the slaves' apartments, laughing softly to herself.



VII.

"FREEDOM."

The morning air of the Seplasia reeked with perfumes, more, even, than was its wont; for Carthaginian and Capuan revellers had been carousing there, and several of the shops had been broken open. The gutters streamed wine with which were mingled all the essences of India and Asia. Flowers, withered and soaked with coarser odours than their own, floated on the pools and drifted down the rivulets. Inert bodies, drunk to repletion, lay scattered about, helpless, unable to drink consciously, but absorbing the wasted liquor through every pore. A dead citizen, his head crushed in by a single blow, sprawled hideously in the middle of the street; while his murderer, a gigantic Gaul, was embracing the corpse with maudlin affection and whispering in its ear to arise and guide him back to camp. Those who passed, from time to time, paused to join the soldier's comrades in laughter and rude jests and suggestions of new methods of awakening his friend.

And now, down the street, extending from wall to wall, came a line of young men, their faces flushed, their garments disordered or cast aside, and their brows crowned with what had once been chaplets of roses. Three or four courtesans, with gowns and tunics torn from their white shoulders, were being dragged along, half laughing, half resisting, and wholly possessed by Bacchic frenzy.

In front of the company marched a slender youth with dark, curling hair and delicate features. In his hand was a thyrsis, and his eyes blazed with the madness of the wine.

"Evoe! evoe!" he shouted. "Comrades! Bacchantes! there is no water in Capua to mix with wine. Equal mixture for poets and fools; undiluted wine for victors and lovers!"

"Perolla is a good Carthaginian to-day," shouted one of his fellows. "Behold how Bacchus has answered our prayers! Kiss him, Cluvia, for a reward."

Pushed forward, the courtesan fell upon the young man's neck, almost bearing him to the street and overwhelming him with drunken caresses. A moment later he freed himself from her arms.

"What is Roman beauty to our Capuan?" he hiccoughed. "Marcia—Cluvia—all are one. All are women, and we are Capuans; braver than Romans, wiser than Carthaginians. Listen, friends! when my father rules Italy, you shall all be kings and queens. Evoe! evoe!"

Shouts and shrieks of drunken joy greeted his words. Several sought to embrace him, and, staggering back, he stumbled over the Gaul and the dead Capuan where they sprawled in the street. Mingled laughter and curses rose all around. Blows and kisses were given and received, and the mad company rolled on through the Seplasia and into the Forum.

Here, too, were intoxication and debauchery, but they were restrained within some manner of bounds. The fact that grave events were taking place, seemed to exert a sobering influence on the populace, and they gathered in a dense throng around the Senate House, whence ominous rumours pursued each other in quick succession.

"The Senate was in session. Hannibal was before them. Decius Magius had been arrested at his demand." So ran the talk.

Guards of Carthaginian soldiery were posted at several points, but especially at all the entrances to the chamber in which the fathers of the city discussed—or obeyed; and against these lines the waves of the rabble surged and broke and receded. Men offered the soldiers money for free passage or news; women offered them kisses for money; and the soldiers took both and gave nothing but jeers and blows.

Perolla and his drunken company had but just poured out to swell the tide of this ocean of popular passion, when a commotion of a different character began at the other end of the Forum. The closed door of the Senate House swung open, and a man in the garb of a senator, but chained and shackled, issued forth and stood on the steps, beneath the porch. Surrounded by a guard of Africans, it was fully a moment, before the mob recognized Decius Magius, the partisan, of Rome. Then a chorus of howls and curses rose up. Insults were hurled,—the grossest that the minds of a licentious rabble could suggest, fists were shaken, women spat toward the prisoner,—even a few stones were cast, and when one of these happened to strike an African of the guard, he turned quietly and cut down the nearest citizen. Then, with their heavy javelins so held as to be used either as spears or clubs, the soldiers descended into the Forum, and, with the captive in their midst, began their progress toward the street and gate that led to the Carthaginian camp. There was no weak delay in this progress, no requests for passage; the escort clove through the mass of the people, as a war galley dashes through the breakers of a turbulent sea. A spray of human beings that strove to escape but could not, boiled up about the prow; a wake of bodies, writhing or senseless, fell behind the stern, while, at either side, the stout javelins rose and fell like the strokes of oars, splashing up blood for foam.

The taunts and threats that had assailed the prisoner died away amid shrieks of terror or pain and the deep rumble of the mob. Stupid with drink, drunk with the exultation of ungoverned power, they wondered vaguely, as they crushed back, why their new friends should strike, merely because they,—the Capuan people,—allies of Carthage, strove to punish a traitor and a common enemy. The prisoner's lips were seen moving, as his captors hurried him along; but no speech from them could be heard, until the Forum had been nearly traversed. Then, on the hush born of surprise and efforts to escape blows, the words of Magius were audible, at least to those nearest.

He was protesting against this violation of the treaty. He was speaking of himself; a Capuan, than whom no one was of higher rank, being dragged in chains to the camp of an ally who had sworn that no Carthaginian should have power over a citizen of Capua. At the mention of his rank, malice and envy lent to some of the cowed rabble courage to jeer once more. Then he had asked, how they expected that an ally so careless of recently sworn obligations would respect his vow that no Capuan would be compelled to do military service against his will; whereupon, some of those who heard looked serious, for this seemed reasonable, and brought the possibility of evil unpleasantly home to them. Finally, he congratulated them upon this marvellous, new-found freedom which the Carthaginian alliance had brought, and which they had been celebrating so earnestly.

Perolla and his companions had found themselves crushed against the portico of the temple of Hercules, in which, only the day before, had been established, also, the worship of the Tyrian Melkarth, out of compliment to the new alliance.

At first they had realized but little of what was going on before and around them. They had listened vacantly to crazy rumours of how the statue of Jupiter in the Senate House had bowed to Hannibal as he entered, and how the Senate had forthwith saluted him as a god and declared him the patron and protector of the city; and, again, to other rumours even more wild of how the wives of all the Capuans had been decreed to be given to the Carthaginians, in return for which the women of Rome were to be surrendered to the Capuans by their victorious allies.

When Decius Magius was led out in custody of the soldiers, Perolla was trying to think whether, after all, he would not prefer Marcia to Cluvia. Then followed the passage through the crowded Forum, straight toward the exit beside the temple of Hercules, and Perolla found himself within a spear's length of his captive friend, whose words of protest and warning fell upon his ears like molten lead, and whose reproachful eyes gazed into his own, piercing through them to his brain and dissipating the fumes of intoxication as sunlight melts the fog. Decius had not spoken to him, for he was mindful that such speech might bring suspicion upon the younger man, but his look had said all that his tongue refrained from saying, and Perolla realized his degradation and his shame.

He started forward and cried out:—

"I was mad, my father; mad! do you hear? It was because I knew suddenly that I loved her, and that she would never love me! and then I rushed out and met others who were drinking, and we feasted and drank until I knew nothing. Pardon! pardon!"

Suddenly he became conscious that Decius and his guards were gone. Had he heard his plea? Surely yes, for did not he, Perolla, now hear his friend's eyes saying to him that he was but a fool who had added to folly, philosophy, and to both, weakness, and to all, madness? He looked around at his companions. Some were gaping at him vacantly, some were laughing. Cluvia tried to grasp his arm, and he shook her off and saw her stumble and roll down the steps that led up to the portico; then a new commotion arose in the direction of the Senate House, and the attention of the bystanders was diverted. More Carthaginian soldiers were forming and marching through the mob that now opened to give passage of double width; and, as the escort came nearer, Perolla saw Hannibal, clad in the gown of a Capuan senator, moving calmly in their midst.

A new frenzy came to his brain to take the place of the fumes of wine: perhaps it was one compounded of that and of shame and horror and revenge. He groped under his torn tunic and found his dagger; then, brandishing it, he burst down through the crowd, uttering incoherent words, and threw himself, like a wild beast, upon the guards.

He had stabbed one through the throat and another in the shoulder, before he was beaten down by a blow from the staff of a javelin. A moment later, the first soldier to recover from the surprise of the incident bent over him with drawn sword.

A sharp exclamation from behind checked the descending thrust, and the soldier turned quickly. Hannibal stood beside him, with a thoughtful smile upon his lips.

"Would you kill a citizen of Capua? a man of our allies?" he said quietly.

The African looked around stupidly. That he should not crush the Italian vermin forthwith was beyond his comprehension, but evidently such was not the schalischim's wish. Grumbling, he slipped his sword slowly back into its sheath, and, at that moment, several of the Capuan senators in Hannibal's train gathered round him with protestations and expressions of regret. The general looked at them and frowned.

"I have been with you scarcely two days," he said, "and now you try to murder me."

The senators fell upon their knees, kissing his gown and hands, in a frenzy of horror at the thought.

"Who is this fellow?" asked Hannibal, turning Perolla over with his foot. Then, recognizing the son of Pacuvius Calavius, he went on: "Some one of no consequence, doubtless; dust of the street that stings when the wind drives it," and he glared around at the prostrate senators.

They glanced at the senseless figure, as if hardly daring so much. Some knew him, more did not; but all united in protesting their ignorance.

Hannibal viewed them with drooping lids, and the smile returned to his lips. Perolla stirred slightly.

Again he addressed the Capuans, raising his voice somewhat, so that the crowd might hear.

"What is your law for the punishment of such a crime?"

Those who had not recognized the assassin, cried out, "Death." Others, divided between the more powerful enmity of Hannibal and the slower revenge of Calavius, made their lips move but were silent, hoping to escape notice in the shout of the others. A few of these were envious of the young man's father; more feared him.

Hannibal noted their confusion and came to their relief.

"But perhaps so wicked a man is not a Capuan, after all. It is difficult to believe that the gods would suffer such impiety to lurk in a city so beloved as yours; and, if no one knows him—"

A chorus of disclaimers snatched at the proffered evasion, and the smile on Hannibal's lips grew more subtle, as he said:—

"In that case, the treaty does not stand, and you, my fathers, are relieved from the burden of his trial and punishment. I am still free to condemn an ally of Rome. Let your rods and axe do their office."

The senators were standing now, and several of them winced and looked frightened at the swift result of their complaisance. One, even, gathered courage to say:—

"When is it my lord's will that punishment fall?"

Hannibal eyed him closely for a moment.

"Here, in your forum, and now," he said, "provided you would give prompt warning to such vermin."

The Capuan shifted uneasily and looked down. Several of the soldiers had already lifted Perolla to his feet, and, holding him upright, had torn away what remained of his garments; others sent for the executioners, and, in a moment, these appeared with the instruments of their calling.

It was doubtful whether the prisoner had recovered full consciousness when the first rod fell upon his shoulders, but he groaned and writhed slightly in the grasp of the four soldiers who held him extended upon the pavement.

Then Hannibal turned away, ordering one of his officers to remain and see the end. He signed to the Capuans to follow him.

"Such jackals, my fathers, are not worthy that men of rank and wealth should watch them die," he said lightly. "The rabble will provide him with sufficient audience."

And the senators, with awed and thoughtful faces, followed in the train of the captain-general of Carthage.



VIII.

DIPLOMACY.

Pacuvius Calavius sat in the atrium of his house. Black robed from head to foot, with hair and beard untrimmed and uncombed, and face and hands foul with dirt, he rocked to and fro and groaned. From time to time he ran his fingers through beard and hair, and uttered the measured cry of the Greek mourners.

An hour before, one of the senators had stolen furtively in, and, having hurriedly related the grewsome scene just enacted in the Forum, had sneaked out again as if he were a spy passing through hostile lines. None other of the friends of the afflicted father had ventured to bear or send a message of condolence. It was as if the house of the once acknowledged leader had been marked for the pestilence—and no pestilence was more to be shunned than the deadly blight of broken power. Even the slaves shifted about in embarrassed silence, offered little service, and obeyed as if conscious that obedience was something of an indiscretion, and was liable at any moment to become a crime. Some had slipped away to their quarters, and had begun to discuss the relative possibilities of freedom, wholesale execution, or a new master, when the coming blow should fall upon this one.

To Marcia, on the other hand, had been born a feeling of sympathy for her host, that, for the present, overcame the contempt with which he had inspired her—a contempt scarcely lessened by the repulsive ostentation of his mourning. She alone ventured to minister to his wants and to beg him to partake of food and drink. Perhaps her attitude was due in a measure to the horror with which she herself had listened to the morning's news. To be sure, she had not admired the character of Perolla. It had in it too much of the weakness and puerility engendered by the bastard Greek culture fashionable in lower Italy, and which naturally attained its most offensive form in the towns of Italian origin. Still, he had been faithful to Rome, and there was something within that told her his madness and ruin were not entirely disconnected with her own personality. Word, too, had just been brought her that both Ligurius and Caipor had died of their injuries. They had seemed on the road to recovery when she visited them on the previous day, and this sudden misfortune filled her with new forebodings, mingled with a suspicion too horrible to dwell upon. As for Decius Magius, she had barely seen him, yet she had felt him to be one of all others upon whom she could rely—an Italian uncorrupted by Capuan luxury, a worthy descendant of the rugged Samnite stock, a Roman in all but name; and now he was snatched away, a prisoner in the hands of enemies who knew nothing of mercy. Still, he had approved of her design; had seen in it the possibility of success; and there was at least a consolation in the thought that, without friends or allies, no one but herself would now be cognizant of the fulfilment of her impending degradation.

Another hour had passed; into Marcia's mind had come the calmness of a fixed resolve. Calavius still moaned and cried out his measured "Aei! aei!"

Suddenly a tumult of noises sounded from the street: the approaching murmur of a multitude, the footsteps of men, shouts of applause, cries of wonder or warning, and sharp words of command.

Ah! the end was near, now. Calavius began to imagine himself stretching out his neck to the sword, and he sought, by proclaiming his willingness and welcome, to stay the chilling of his blood, the trembling of his lips and hands.

Staves were beating upon the outer door; the hum of voices in the street rose and fell and rose again.

"Open the door, Phoenix," mumbled Calavius, as he rocked and swayed. "Open the door and let them enter. I am an old man. My son is dead. What matters a few years of life? I pray to the gods that the barbarians may not hack me. You shall see how easy I will make it—if they have but a sharp sword." Suddenly he sprang to his feet and grasped Marcia's arm. "They will not scourge me? Surely they will not scourge me? I am a senator and the friend of Carthage!—will the door hold? Hasten, my daughter; run and tell me whether they are guarding the street in the rear—before the tradesmen's gate."

The beating upon the door still continued, with short intermissions, and Marcia surmised that the porter was probably skulking in the attic with his fellow-slaves. Calavius had turned suddenly from the depths of despair and the height of resignation to a keen desire for life. He had hurried away to seek for some unguarded exit, heedless, for the moment, of what even Marcia fully realized: the utter impossibility of a man so well known escaping unaided through a hostile city and without a friendly land whereto to turn his flight. He had left her standing in the court, to be a first prey of the assailants, whether Capuans or Carthaginians, and she reasoned that it would be better, or at least quicker, to unbar the door before it should be broken in: she was wondering, in fact, at the forbearance that had preserved it thus far from more violent assault. Calavius had been gone some time. Doubtless he had escaped or, recognizing the uselessness of his attempt, was hiding somewhere, and, in either event, nothing would be lost by judicious parleying.

Arranging her robe, she walked slowly through the hall, slid back the bolts one by one, and let the door swing out into the street; then she stood, dazed and frightened, for the sight that met her eyes was Hannibal himself reclining in a litter borne by four Nubians. The curtains were thrown back, and he was leaning out, evidently giving some directions to the attendants whose summons had thus far failed to obtain an answer. Beside the litter stood the priest, Iddilcar, with folded arms and look bent upon the ground. Around them were ranged a strong guard of Africans, and, back through the streets, as far as she could see, the Capuan rabble were thronging forward, curious or bloodthirsty.

All this was visible in a moment, and then the general, attracted by the creaking of the door and the exclamation of the crowd, looked up and saw Marcia standing upon the threshold.

The litter was set down at an imperceptible signal, and he stepped out, robed in a loose gown of black, entirely without ornaments, and with hair and beard uncombed and sprinkled lightly with ashes. Marcia stared in wonder. Surely this could not be the Carthaginian method of announcing judgment or execution! She caught a flash of subtle lightning from the eyes of Iddilcar, though these had not seemed to neglect for a moment their close scrutiny of the pavement. Then Hannibal stood before her, bowing low and speaking in suppressed tones:—

"The gods be with you and dwell within this house! I have come to look upon the face of my father, and, if may be, to console him. Praise be to Tanis for the omen that you have opened to us, rather than one whose servile duty it was. So shall our entrance be free and our going joyful."

He had cast a rapid glance around, as he spoke, and Marcia knew that he divined why the service of tending the door had been left to her—a free woman and a guest; yet he was pleased to ignore all inferences, and to attribute her act to some divine will. His words, too, were more than friendly, and, if they covered no snare of Punic faith, augured safety and continued favour.

"I have come," he continued, "that I might mingle my tears with those of my father who mourns the death of a son."

Marcia stood amazed. Had they not been told how this man had himself ordered the execution of Perolla? How, then, could even a Carthaginian show such effrontery! Still, it was necessary to think quickly, and her woman's wit told her that, in any event, Calavius' best chance of safety was to seem to accept the visit in the spirit which cloaked it. So thinking, she led the visitors into the peristyle,—Hannibal, Iddilcar, and some twenty soldiers who followed as if by previous orders; while the rest mounted guard before the vestibule. Murmuring some word of apology, she hurried back through the garden to the tradesmen's door.

It was still closed and barred, facts which, together with the rumble of the crowd without, showed that Calavius' plan of escape had proven impracticable. Then she began a careful search, becoming more agitated, with each moment, about the difficulty of explaining the delay. At last she found him, hidden away under a couch in one of the slaves' apartments, so senseless with terror that several minutes passed, before he could grasp her tale of Hannibal's presence, and of the chance of safety it offered. When, however, he understood that there was yet room for diplomacy,—that the visitors were not mere executioners with orders to obey,—he drew himself out from his hiding-place, alert and active. The need of haste, in view of the time already lost, was apparent; but, nevertheless, he paused in the garden to wallow a moment in the mould and plunge his hands into its depth.

Marcia saw with disgust, but she led on until they reached the peristyle; when, slipping aside into one of the cells, she watched the playing of the game.

Calavius paused a moment at the entrance. Then, groaning deeply to attract attention, he shambled forward, and, throwing himself at full length before Hannibal, seized the hem of his robe and pressed it eagerly to his lips.

"Ah, my master!" he cried. "Slay me, slay me at once or with tortures. Surely that man is not fit to live whose loins have engendered such a monster of wickedness. Only by death can I hope to expiate my offence and retain the favour of the gods."

"Rise, my father," said the captain-general, and to Marcia's ears his voice rang true with sympathy. He reached out his hand to help Calavius. "Do you not see that I also wear mourning for this melancholy error?"

"Never shall I rise or face you," cried Calavius, "until you give me your oath that I shall have your forgiveness before I die. Ah, the monster! the parricide! who would slay, at one stroke, both him who had brought him up to better deeds, and him who is indeed the father of his country. Ah, gods! the shame of it! Give orders, lord, quickly—only vow first that you forgive me."

Hannibal's tones were low and deep with sorrow, and, by an imperceptible effort of what must have been prodigious strength, he raised the unwilling Calavius to his feet.

"Listen, my father," he said. "Have they not told you how I knew not the young man? He was stained and dishevelled with revellings in honour of our alliance—in honour of me, unhappy one. Perchance the Lord Bacchus, whom you worship, willed to have him for his own, for surely it was he that raised the young man's hand against me. Ah! my father, did I not know how this son of thine was most beautiful, best, and bravest of the Capuan youth? Had I not marked him out for signal honour—only less than yours, my father and his? See, now, how the gods confuse the affairs of men. It was at the banquet that I learned his worth, and determined that he should love me and find in me a friend."

"Truly yes," interrupted Calavius, "and you had won his heart, for, walking in the garden, he told me as much, only adding that he must appear to turn to you slowly—for the honour of his name among the partisans of Rome, whom may the gods confound as they have done."

Hannibal smiled softly, as he took up the words:—

"All this I knew well, being somewhat learned in men, my father; and now the gods have smitten my brother with madness that he should try to slay me, and myself with blindness that I should, unknowingly, order the death of one I loved most. Look, my father, I join you in your mourning, with black robes and ashes; I come to weep with you at the feet of Fate—you whose love for me has lost you a son, and to offer you myself to be a son in his place."

Calavius embraced him, mumbling prayers and vows and endearments in the sudden joy of escaped death. Iddilcar raised his eyes from the study of the mosaics and turned aside, shaking as if with some strong emotion, and Hannibal spoke again.

"One thing more, my father, I would speak to you of, though for my best interests I should hold my peace nor make dissensions among allies. There were those with me when this evil happened—men of your Capuan Senate—who knew this youth better than I, and who I am convinced suspected the truth; yet they spoke not—"

"Ah!" cried Calavius, "and you have their names writ down for me? We shall slay them!"

Hannibal's face wore an expression strangely inscrutable as he answered:—

"Yes, my father, I have their names whom I suspect; and they shall surely die. Grant it to me, though, that I alone keep them and expiate my own fault by avenging your wrong. This I swear by Baal-Melkarth and Baal-Moloch to accomplish at the season best for our plans. Therefore I tell you the fact, but without names, that you may know that you have enemies and walk warily, while I, your son, shall, under the gods, be your reliance for protection and revenge."

Another thought seemed to be struggling for utterance in the bosom of Calavius—a wish prompted by religion but checked by prudence. Twice he raised his head as if to speak, and twice his eyes wandered. Then Hannibal spoke again, as if reading the other's thoughts:—

"I have also, my father, given orders that funeral honours be paid to my brother; a pyre rich with woven fabrics and wine and oil and spices, and, from my own share of the Etruscan spoils, I have chosen a vase boldly pictured with a combat of heroes."

Tears gushed anew from the eyes of Calavius at this added evidence of thoughtful friendship, and once again he embraced his benefactor, but with somewhat more of dignity, now that the fear of death was removed.

Suddenly Marcia became conscious of an intruding presence beside her, and, turning, her eyes fell upon the repulsive features of Iddilcar, that seemed to sneer through the semi-gloom. She shuddered and drew back against the wall. Iddilcar held out his arms which the broad sleeves of his robe left bare to elbow. An expression of eager lust made his face even more hideous than did the sneer of a moment past.

"Come, little bird," he said, "and I will charm you. Moon of Tanis! Lamp of Proserpine! Essence of all the Heavens! do you not see I love you?—I, Iddilcar, priest of Melkarth. Behold, my robe is dark. It mourns—not for the fool who died, but because you have not loved me. Love, and it will gleam again in violet, and all the bracelets that hung from my arms at the banquet shall be yours."

She pressed her hands to her face; she felt herself swaying upon her trembling knees; only the support of the wall saved her from sinking down.

After a moment's silence he began again:—

"What is an old man, and weak—a sport of foreigners—to me who am young and strong, and by whose word even the schalischim of Carthage must march or halt? I, the favoured one of Melkarth, beseech you, a Roman, for favour, because Adonis wills it. See how I come to you, unpermitted, from those who cajole each other, and I show you my heart. Love me! love me! leave this keeper, who is but an old woman, and you shall be a priestess in Carthage, and the people shall swarm around and cast their jewels and wealth before you, for the deity—that shall be you alone; and we shall feast and love and love and feast again in such splendour as not even Carthage has ever known—"

She could restrain her feelings no longer; all her resolves seemed to slip from her in the presence of this man; she thrust out her hands and turned her head away with a shiver of utter disgust. Her movement was vague in the dim light, but he saw it, and his face darkened.

"What is this house?" he exclaimed harshly. "How long will it stand against me? Shall I not crush its root, even as its branch was torn off to-day? Filth! vermin! dust! Shall not its flower lie in my bosom to bloom forever, if she wills—or to bloom for a moment and wither and be cast away, if she wills not?"

He strode forward and caught her wrist; his hot breath steamed in her face.

"No! no! I hate you! Go!" The words sprang from her lips, without power to hold them back, and she struggled frantically in his grasp; she heard his teeth grinding, as, mad with passion, he strove to bind her arms to her sides. At that moment a rattling of weapons from the peristyle seemed to bring him to a consciousness of his surroundings. Releasing her, he half turned, and she sank down in the corner of the cell. The visit was evidently over, and Hannibal, about to take his leave, was glancing around, evidently in search of the missing priest.

Iddilcar spoke low and rapidly:—

"I will return at once. Wait me till I come, or I will have you given to a syntagma of Africans."

He was out in the peristyle now, bowing low before the captain-general. Then he whispered in his ear—probably some explanation of his absence, of how he had been keeping watch against treachery; for Hannibal nodded several times, and, again embracing Calavius, accepted his escort to the door, giving his arm to steady the steps of the older man.



IX.

THE BAIT.

Marcia crouched, huddled in the farthest corner of the cell, and listened to the receding footsteps of the visitors. Then she heard new sounds echoing through the house: the rushing feet of slaves descending from their quarters, striving to gain their stations unobserved; the sharp tongue of Calavius now loosed from the bonds of terror, and rating them soundly for their unfaithfulness and cowardice; the patter of excuses and protestations. In a few moments the quarters above resounded with the shrieks and groans of those condemned to the lash; for the wrath and indignation of Calavius, generally the mildest of masters, were spurred to vindictive bitterness by a consciousness of his late terror and abasement. "They were guilty of all crimes, and, worst of all, of the rankest ingratitude. Let them learn that their master was still strong enough to punish." So the scourges fell, and the victims screamed and writhed.

All these things Marcia heard, but they meant little to a mind so full of internal conflict as was hers. What was she to believe of herself? Had she not marked out a course of self-devotion and sacrifice which was to gain respite and safety for her country, revenge upon its enemies? Had not others, notably Decius Magius, been forced unwillingly to admit the possible efficiency of her plan? Yet now, when the gods had shown her favour beyond all anticipation—had brought the chosen quarry into her net—she had thrown all aside and yielded to her womanly weakness, her instinct of modesty, her sense of personal repulsion. What right had she to think of herself as a woman! He, for whose love her sex had been dear to her, was gone—a pallid shade who could no longer be sensitive to her beauty, a vague being sent far hence into the land of the four rivers by these very men whom she had devoted to destruction. What though the virtues that had beaten down her resolves had been good once—good for Marcia the woman? They were evil for that Marcia who had resolved to be a heroine, and who was now learning how hard it is for the female to seek the latter crown without losing the former. Again and again she struggled with herself, swayed back and forth by the counter-currents of conflicting shames, until the thought of death, as a final possibility, revived to steel her purpose. The sacrifice and the shame would be short, and, in the consciousness of her work accomplished, she could die, going before the lady Proserpine with a pure heart that need not fear to meet the eyes of Sergius when they should ask its secret.

Rising quickly, she hastened to her chamber by passages where she would not be likely to meet her host. Whatever intentions he might have entertained toward her had been effectually suspended, if not obliterated, by the course of events, and now he was much too busy setting in order his demoralized household to think of her presence. Therefore, she reached her apartment unnoticed, and, summoning her tirewomen, surrendered herself to the tedious process of adornment according to the accepted taste of Magna Graecia.

The afternoon was spent, ere all had been finished. Then she ate hurriedly and with little appetite, drinking deeply of the Lesbian wine till her cheeks flushed through the rouge, and her eyes sparkled. Calavius had gone out, busy about affairs of state, and eager to collect the strained threads of his influence—threads that might be strengthened by their very straining, in the hands of a politician who realized how men were ready to grant every complaisance to one whom they had deserved ill of and whose vengeance they feared. Marcia found herself wondering whether Iddilcar would indeed return as he had said. Perhaps her attitude had seemed to him so unfavourable that he would strike first;—but when and how? Perhaps affairs of state detained him also. Perhaps, even, this man, Hannibal, whose eye pierced through all subterfuges, had already divined the danger and set himself to nullify it. Perhaps—and then, as she was reclining in the larger dining hall, one of the slaves entered and whispered in her ear. She rose quickly.

"Tell my lord that she whom he favours awaits him at the hemicycle in the garden, and guide him to me."

She spoke, marvelling at her steady tones, and, turning, walked, with drooping head, to the semicircular, marble seat;—not the single seat, back amongst the foliage, where she had met Perolla; "the philosopher's chair," as Calavius had called it laughingly, where his son retired to commune with thoughts too great for men. Sinking down at one end of the hemicycle, she studied the carved lion's head that ornamented the arm-rest, and the paw, thrusting out from the side-support, upon the pavement beneath. It troubled her that such wonderful handicraft had not considered that the head was entirely out of proportion with the paw; and yet, if the former were larger or the latter smaller, surely they would not fit well in the places they were intended to ornament. What a provoking dilemma, to be sure—and at such a time, for, glancing suddenly up, she saw Iddilcar's dark, repulsive features bent upon her with a terrible intentness. All her former loathing surged back over her heart with tenfold force, sickening her with its suffocating weight.

"Light of the two eyes of Baal," he murmured softly. "Look kindly upon thy servant. Smile upon his love, that thy light and his worship may be eternal. Behold! for thee I cast aside the worship of the lord Melkarth!"

He tore apart his long, violet tunic, showing his throat and bosom hung with necklaces. His arms, bare to the shoulders, glittered with heavy bracelets.

"Lo! the spoils of Italy assigned to my Lord I give to thee,"; and, taking off necklace and bracelet, he knelt and piled them at her feet, raising and parting his arms in the attitude of oblation.

Charmed as by a serpent, Marcia watched him with horrible disgust, yet unable to turn her eyes aside.

"What is Tanis to thee!" he went on. "What, Ceres! What, Proserpine! Ashera! Derceto!—goddesses afar from men—goddesses whom, not seeing, we worship faintly with sacrifice and ceremony. But thou—thou shalt dwell forever in the temple upon the Square of Melkarth. Come!"

Again, and in spite of every resolve, Marcia felt the overmastering sense of woman's loathing that stood so obstinately between herself and the role she had marked out. It was too much. She could not—could not suffer this man for a moment, even with the release of swiftly hastening death before her eyes. She struggled to her feet, groping about, turning, and, with a stifled scream, she sought to fly; but her strength refused her even this service.

In an instant, he was up and beside her; his hand had roughly grasped her shoulder, half tearing away the cyclas; his little eyes blazed with vindictive fury; his nostrils dilated; his coarse lips writhed in hungry passion.

"Ah, slave! You would escape? Where? where? In this house? Ah, fool! Could you not measure the comedy of this morning? Do you think this old imbecile, this man condemned to follow his mouse-killing son, can protect you from the meanest Nubian in the army? Do you think—ah!" and he raised his hand, as if to strike.

Wrenching herself loose by a quick movement, Marcia turned and faced him with all the blood of the Torquati flushing in her cheeks, all their fire blazing in her eyes.

"Dog of a pulse-eater!" she cried, and he shrank back before the vehemence of her tone. "Do I care what you do? Break your alliance with these people if you wish—an alliance of fools with fools, knaves with knaves! Break it, before it be cloven asunder for you by the sword of Rome. Doubtless your chief will sacrifice all his plans to your cowardly lust. Kill my protector, tear down his house, and—kill me!—me, for whom there is neither sowing nor reaping in this matter."

All his arrogance and violence had vanished, cowed and crushed by her outbreak; but, even as he cringed before her, the gleam of Oriental cunning had taken its place.

"Ah! now, indeed, art thou more beautiful than the lady Tanis," he muttered, clasping and unclasping his hands, as if in ecstasy. "Now, indeed, do I love thee." His voice sank to a whisper, and he glanced about timorously. "And so it is neither sowing nor reaping with you, my pretty?" he went on. "Fools we may be, but not the fools to be blind to your sowing—not the fools who shall not root up your seed before the day of reaping. Did not you, a Roman, counsel Mago to delay? Did you not, foolish one, even give such counsel at the banquet of welcome to the schalischim, until I laughed in my cup to see a silly girl who would cajole men of government and of war?"

Marcia stood, rigid and pale. All her plans seemed shivering about her. She was doomed to fail then—fail after all, through the cunning of these vermin. Still she struggled to retain her composure.

"Liar!" she said. "Do I not know that if you spoke truth I would already be buried under hurdles weighted with stones?"

He laughed softly. "Why?" he asked. "What can you avail, coining lead for us who perceive its falseness? Nay, you are even of use to Hannibal, for, by your very eagerness, he has come to Maharbal's thinking, that all must be done speedily, if we would take Rome. Even now Capuans work night and day building our engines. Soon they will set them up before your gates. We shall winter in Rome, as the guests of the lady Marcia who has invited us. Therefore Hannibal grants you life and to be a comfort to his friend and father, Pacuvius Calavius, in his declining years;" and he laughed again, but harshly and sneeringly.

Marcia could scarcely keep her feet under the crushing force of these blows. In what vain manner had she, an inexperienced girl, blind to all but a noble purpose, contended with men whose cunning had sufficed to snare the chiefs of her people! Worse even, she had herself forged the weapons for the destruction of all she had hoped to save. Iddilcar watched her from under half-closed lids, noting every line of her face, and reading its struggle and its despair.

"And so it is wisdom for us to march north at once?" he said softly.

"How do I know?—a woman?"

He smiled subtly and ignored the change of front he had wrested from her.

"Love me, and I swear by the crown of Melkarth that Hannibal shall winter in Capua."

She started, as if from the touch of fire. Had her ears heard words of his, or was it only a belated thought coursing from her brain to her heart?

He stepped nearer and spoke again:—

"Love me, pretty one, and Hannibal shall winter in Capua,—yea, though he hangs on the cross for it,—though all the armies of Carthage become food for dogs."

At first she had been dreaming of new snares; but these last words and the vehemence of his tone brought her to an intuitive realization that this man was indeed prepared to give up god, country, general, friends,—all, so only that he might gratify his overmastering passion. The gods were indeed with her, after all,—were guiding her aright; and the knowledge steadied her self-control and strengthened her resolve. What omen of favour could be more potent than this snatching of victory out of the very hands of ruin—this moulding of ruin into a source of victory?

So she spoke, calmly and evenly:—

"Perhaps you tell the truth, perhaps folly. How shall I know, any more than I know of this power to command commanders, of which you make such silly boast?"

"Not I—-not I, lady," he protested eagerly. "Listen! It is the lord Melkarth that has always loved the colonies of Phoenicia, first among which is Carthage. It is he that has guided and guarded us through the perils of the deep and of the desert, of the skies and of the earth, of hunger and thirst, of beasts and men. What god equals him in our city! What god receives such gifts, such incense, such sacrifices! What though we fear Baal Moloch! Is it not the lord Melkarth whom we love? It is he who goes before our armies, that he may tell them when to attack, when to await the foe. I am his priest. Do you understand? I have spoken his words many times. Now he shall speak mine."

Marcia could hardly fail to understand the nature of the power which this man now proposed to lay at her feet; yet it all seemed horribly impossible that he, a priest, could dare such sacrilege for such end. Had she been Fabius, Paullus, or even Sergius,—men who were already groping amid the Greek schools of doubt, and were coming to regard the religion of the state more as an invaluable means of curbing the vices of the low and ignorant than as a divine light for the learned,—had she been such as these, this proposal of Iddilcar would have seemed incredible only on account of its treason to his country. And yet, in one sense, she was better fitted than they to understand the Carthaginian. True scepticism had found little room under the mantle of the gloomy, the terrible cult that swayed the destinies of the Chanaanitish races. Even the priests, while they were ready enough to use the people's faith to minister to their own ends, trembled before their savage gods. Low, brutish, full of inconsistent wiles their faith might be, but such faith it was as an educated Roman could with difficulty comprehend. On the other hand, the minds of the women of Rome had not as yet swerved from unquestioning belief in the gods consulting and the gods apart, and the Torquati were most conservative among all the great houses. From childhood up—and in years she was scarcely more than a child—all these had been very real to her. Pomona wandered through every orchard beside her beloved Vertumnus; Pan and his sylvan brood sported behind the foliage of every copse. She would as soon have thought of questioning their presence as of doubting her own being. Marcia believed; the average Roman patrician affected to believe and indulged in his polite, Hellenic doubts; the Carthaginian priest, while he believed, with all Marcia's fervour, in a theology to which Marcia's was tender as the divine fellowship of the Phaeacians, yet conceived that it was entirely legitimate to play tricks upon his fiend-gods—to pit his cunning against theirs. If they caught him, perhaps they would laugh, perhaps consume him in the flames of their wrath. It depended on their mood—whether they had dined well, perhaps; and he would take his chances. He stood, now, toward his deities, just where the heroes of Homer had stood centuries before. He was a living evidence of the Asiatic birth of Greek theology—only, in the Asian races, religious feeling was not religious thought, did not arise from the mind or change, like the cults of Europe, as the mind that evolved or adopted them developed and outgrew its offspring.

So it was that, while Marcia, but for her instinctive realization of the truth, might have been utterly unable to credit the sincerity of such prodigious wickedness, yet, armed with this intuition as a starting-point, she sought for and found reasons to support it. The purity of her own faith came to her aid. Perhaps the Punic gods were mere demons, as they seemed to be, and Iddilcar knew it and relied for protection upon the mightier gods of Rome. In a sense, she reasoned on false premises, but her conclusion was, none the less, more accurate than would have been that of either Paullus or Sergius. For the time, at least, Iddilcar was entirely sincere. To be sure, if he could gain his end by mere promises, he preferred to deceive Marcia rather than Melkarth, but his plotting had not gotten so far as that yet. Now, his fierce, Oriental nature was consuming with that passion which, in it, took the place of all love. This Roman woman had aroused desires that he had never known in the gardens of Ashera; her face was to the faces of the courtesans who thronged the sacred woods on feast days, as the glory of the crescent moon was to the sputter of the rancid oil in the lamp that illumined the cell of Fancula Cluvia. Cunning beyond his race, learned in the strange learning of the East that had come to a few in Egypt and to fewer yet in Phoenicia, Iddilcar read the struggle that was taking place in the girl's mind.

"What do I care for Hannibal!" he cried; "for the Great Council! for Carthage! I would give them all to you for one kiss. To him who has learned all secret knowledge, the mind alone is God and city and home and friends,—everything, everything save love," and his voice, harsh, and strident, sank to a whisper in which was compassed all the fierceness of ungoverned and ungovernable desire.

Marcia knew, now, that he was speaking the truth; that he would indeed stop at nothing; and, with the certainty, there came to her a strange mingling of exultation, terror, and calm. She saw this man, powerful with the power of the conqueror, learned with the learning of the student and of the ascetic, grovelling here at her feet—slave to a force against which no power, no philosophy could avail. She saw him crawl to her and press her robe to his lips; she heard him mumbling and whining like some animal, and she despised him and grew stronger in the light of her growing self-esteem. At last she spoke.

"It is well. I have listened and determined. Yes, you are right. I have wished that the army should not march north; I have wished that it should winter in Campania. I am a Roman; why should I not wish it? You say you can accomplish this. Do so, and you shall have your reward."

Iddilcar sprang to his feet and threw out his arms to draw her to him; the breath came from his chest in short gasps; his eyes were suffused with tears through which he saw something glitter; and his hands, clutching and unclutching, caught only air. Then his arms fell to his sides; he paused and looked stupidly at her. She had sprung back and was facing him defiantly with a short dagger raised to strike.

"Not so soon, slave," she said, and her voice rang in his ears like steel. "He who would reap must first sow."

"You do not love me," he said sheepishly, gnashing his teeth because he knew the foolishness of his words, and yet could say no others.

She laughed; then her face grew sober.

"No," she said; "I do not love you. Why should I? We love those who serve us well—"

"Ah! but I have promised," he broke in. "I am giving you everything."

"I want but one thing," she said, while the lines of her mouth hardened; "and, for that, I take no promise."

He lowered his head to avoid the straight flash of her eyes.

"It is I, then, who must trust—always I," he muttered. "How do I know you will give yourself when I earn you?—how do I know you will not kill yourself with that dagger? for you hate me," and then, with sudden fierceness; "why should I not take my own? What hinders me?"

"This," said Marcia, touching the point with her finger.

Iddilcar shuddered.

"Listen now," she began, "and be reasonable. I have named my price, and you have said it is not too much. Why speak of love or hate? Earn me and take me."

"Yes," he echoed; for he was braver when his eyes studied the pavement; "why speak of love or hate? It is you I want—your kisses, your embraces. Who shall say that hatred may not flavour them better even than love?" and he sneered. "Ah! but how shall I know?"

"I am a Roman, and I have promised. Fulfil your Punic word as well, and I swear you shall have your pay, so surely,"—and then the memory of another day, happier, but oh! so bitterly regretted, came to her mind,—"so surely as Orcus sends not the dead back from Acheron. Now go."

He drew back, step by step, still facing her, longing to rebel, yet not daring, cringing, skulking like a whipped cur. He reached the end of the path; the entrance to the garden was behind him. He raised his clenched hand to the heavens. "Ah, Melkarth!" burst from his lips, and, turning, he plunged into the house, running.

Marcia listened eagerly to the fall of his sandals. They died away, and the distant door creaked. Tears filled her eyes, and, shivering in every muscle, she sank down upon the seat and buried her face in her hands.



X.

MELKARTH.

Two moons had waxed and waned; Pacuvius Calavius had dined in his winter triclinium for the first time this year, and Marcia was rejoicing at the omen. She watched her host, as he lay back upon his couch, and noted with pity the change that had come over him. When he had greeted her coming, he had seemed not very much past middle age—a brisk man, well preserved in mind and body. Now he was old—very old—and the pallor and wrinkles were prominent through the flush of the wine and the paint with which he strove to hide them. Even his ambition was dead; he hardly sought the Senate House, but, stopping within doors, maundered querulously and unceasingly to Marcia, to his servants, to any one who would listen to him, of the blunders that were being made, and of how war and negotiations should be conducted, speaking always as a man for whom such things had no personal interest. The diadem of Italy that had once blinded his eyes to good faith and oaths of alliance, had melted away in the flames of the pyre that consumed his son. As for Marcia, she had come to regard him with something of that indulgent consideration which we feel for the aged and infirm. His former attitude toward herself, which had filled her with contempt and disgust, had vanished utterly, and, in its place, was a fatherly kindness that had now no nearer object upon which to lavish itself. As for the household, what little discipline had once pertained, was gone. The slaves were no longer punished, and, slavelike, they presumed upon their master's gentleness or indifference. They pilfered right and left; they neglected duties and orders; until, at last, a large measure of the care of her host and his house devolved upon Marcia alone; and Marcia, also, had softened and grown kindlier, and was as slow to ask for punishments as was Calavius to decree them. They seemed like two who were awaiting death, and would not add to the measure of human misery, knowing, from their own, how great this was.

"Let them enjoy a false freedom for a few days longer," said Calavius. "Soon we shall be gone, and then—who knows? I have no heirs, and the state may not deal so kindly with them." Strangely enough, he seemed always to assume Marcia's coming death along with his own; and when she gazed into her mirror, its story moulded well with that reflected in the mirror of her thoughts.

She had grown thin—very thin—and pale, and her eyes burned, large and luminous, as with the fires of fever. Her lips, too, were redder even than when the blood had tinted them with hues of more perfect vigour.

Hannibal had continued to preserve the attitude of respectful consideration which had marked his demeanour on that day of which they never spoke. He still greeted Calavius as, "father," when he came to ask about his health, and on the days when he did not come, he sent some Carthaginian of rank, generally Iddilcar, to make courteous inquiries in his stead.

Calavius, on the other hand, complained continuously of the schalischim's delay, and Hannibal listened with downcast face, frowning to himself, and made no answer except that he was the servant of the gods. Marcia's presence he entirely ignored. Still, he spent little of his time in Capua, and of this Calavius was now speaking.

"Truly did you note the news we have received to-day, my daughter? Two of the new engines destroyed before Casilinum!—Casilinum, forsooth!—a paltry village, against which the Capuan children would hardly deign to march! It is Rome—Rome—Rome that calls—and this great general, this conqueror, sits down before Nuceria, Acerrae, Nola, Casilinum. Soon, mark me," and his eyes gleamed prophetic, "Rome will sit down before Capua: and then, receive thou me, O Death, who art my friend and well-wisher!"

Marcia wondered at this vehemence, so different from his manner through all these weeks.

"But the omens, my father," she said, after a moment's pause. "I have heard that the gods of Carthage forbid the march north. Perhaps they fear to contend with the gods of Rome at the foot of their own hills."

"Tush! girl," exclaimed Calavius, impatiently. "Who does not know that the gods say such words as their thievish priests filch from them. Mark now this fellow that comes from the captain-general. Do you not see how the fingers of his left hand clutch and unclutch? Were Hannibal to crucify him and a few like, his gods might utter more favouring responses. Meanwhile, our engines that should thunder at your Capenian Gate are consumed before mud heaps; and who knows but all the time some tree grows stouter that it may bear the weight of this Hannibal, the slave of gods that should be taught their place and their duties."

Marcia, despite her complicity, listened, shuddering, to these sacrilegious words; and, mingled with her shrinking from a philosophy that dared to talk of the immortals as mere means to be used or cast aside as human ends might dictate, was a terror lest similar reasoning should at last find place in Hannibal's mind and thus bring to naught her aims and her sacrifices. It was easy to see how the general chafed at the unwonted delay, and with what willingness he listened when another spoke the words which he himself dared not utter.

Calavius had but just finished his tirade when they both turned at a slight noise and saw Iddilcar standing in the entrance of the room. How long he had been there—what he had heard, neither knew, but his face wore the subtle smile which, though well-nigh native to its lines, yet seemed always to bear some hidden import.

"The favour of Melkarth and of the Baalim be with you!" he said softly. "Your servants, my Pacuvius, are not over-well trained. There was no offer to bear word of my coming—no offer of attendance. The porter hardly deigned to swing the door for me."

Marcia, knowing Iddilcar as she did, was prompt to take this speech in the light of an explanation of his eavesdropping; but the once sharp intelligence of Calavius had been too much deadened to search for secondary meanings.

"I am an old man, priest," he said querulously. "Why should I leave stripes and crying behind me?"

Iddilcar shrugged his shoulders. "That may be," he replied, "but if we had such servants as yours in Carthage we should send their shades ahead of us."

He had indeed deftly parried any attack or inquiry. Then, suddenly, and of his own accord, he turned back to strike.

"And so you have been condemning the piety of the schalischim? the integrity of the college of priests? the truth of the gods themselves, for aught I know? Have a care!"—he was lashing himself into a fury—"I have listened to your words. If I reported them, how long before you would both be sent to Carthage to keep comradeship with that terrible fellow, Decius Magius? Have care! have care lest the gods strike through me, their servant. Nevertheless the gods are merciful to those who bring offerings—peace-offerings of gold and jewels and raiment and spices. Come, what will you give me that I smother their wrath—I, Iddilcar, your friend, whom you speak ill of behind his back—whom you hate—-yes, both of you;" and his eyes flashed at Marcia with a strange recklessness that she had never seen in them.

Wondering and terrified, she listened to his outburst of rage, but Calavius heard it calmly, and answered, without troubling himself to probe its import.

"You shall have a talent of silver and such jewels as you choose," he said, rising. "I will go and give the orders."

"Orders!" sneered the other; but to Marcia it seemed that the word and look covered suspicion at the ready acquiescence of the Capuan.

"Then I will go with you and see that these orders are obeyed. Come; ah!—" and he turned to Marcia; "and will you be here when I return? I wish to speak with you."

She inclined her head, still wondering, and when they had left the room her wonder deepened. Surely a change had taken place. A Carthaginian was always said to love money, but for Iddilcar to seek to obtain it by such crude and violent means, from a man whom his general professed to honour and protect, seemed to augur something of which she knew not. Either Hannibal's protection was to be, for some reason, withdrawn, or else?—but what else could embolden the priest to such license? The look, too, with which he had regarded herself! She had restrained him with some difficulty during the past months, but now she felt instinctively that her control had vanished. Even violence seemed near; for that Iddilcar could be fool enough to dream that his mere repetition of the words he had listened to, would enrage Hannibal, she did not for a moment believe. The general had heard the same from Calavius, face to face, and had only frowned and bit his lips behind his beard, as if feeling their justice. What, then, could have happened?

"Ah! you are still here."

She looked up quickly, and saw that the priest had returned alone. He went on, speaking quickly and nervously, but in low tones:—

"The time has come. And so you were thinking, thinking of what? Was it rejoicing that Tanis was to give you to me so soon?" and he showed his teeth, like a dog. "Listen: they suspect me. I have done all as you wished, but there was a council to-day in the camp before Casilinum, and Maharbal fell on his knees, as he did after Cannae, and begged to march north,—not with the cavalry alone, as then; he knew it was too late for that: and the schalischim knit his brows and frowned. Then Hasdrubal and Karthalo added their prayers and pleadings, gathering around him, and then he turned his sombre face to me, and asked if it was permitted; but, before I could answer, for my mind was disturbed, that animal whom they call, 'The Fighter' had drawn his sword and held it over my head, crying out: 'Yes, friends, it is permitted—see! It is permitted;' and then I felt myself grow pale, and I heard the great beast laugh. A moment later and Hannibal had ordered him to put up his sword, and I saw Maharbal whispering quick words in the general's ear, among which it seemed to me that his lips formed your name. Again, Hannibal asked: 'Is it permitted, Iddilcar? or what sacrifice will your lord have from us? Have we not served him faithfully? Is there aught he wishes?' and I felt all their eyes on me; but, above all, were yours that were soon to smile. Therefore I took courage, which the lord Melkarth granted, and spoke boldly, explaining that I had as yet been able to win no favour, though I had prayed long and fasted and lashed myself with thongs, whereupon Hannibal-the-Fighter made as if to tear off my mantle, laughing in his beard; and when I saw they did not believe me, my terror came back. Then it was that Melkarth shed wisdom upon his servant, and, after a moment's thought, I spoke up, thus:—

"'Listen, lords,' I said; 'I am a native Carthaginian, like you all, and I reverence the gods. Howbeit it may chance that here, beyond the sea, it is not so easy to win their favour, so that they shall go before us. New and strange sacrifices and pleadings wherein I am untaught may be needed to pierce the denser ether of this land. Truly, lords, as ye have not failed in piety, neither have I erred in divination, for Melkarth has spoken many times, telling me of the unnumbered woes that would overwhelm the army if it marched upon Rome unbidden, and he hath spoken truth, and I have saved you to revile me for it—only I would learn if there be yet speech better fitted to his ear.' I paused, and they were silent, wondering. Then I spoke on: 'Grant me, lords, three days, that I may journey to Cumae; for I have heard that a woman dwells there, wise in the ways of the gods, and, if I bear her rich presents, it may happen that she will teach me the words that shall pierce this dull air, even to where Baal-Melkarth sits enthroned in Mappalia, that he may grant all your wishes.' So I crossed my arms upon my breast, and, bowing my head, listened. 'At Cumae?' growled Jubellius Taurea, who sat near me, 'say, rather, at the house of Pacuvius Calavius,' and I felt myself trembling, for then I knew surely that I had heard Maharbal aright, and that I was suspected. Still, I stood fast, and at last Hannibal spoke: 'Go to Cumae for three days,' he said sternly. 'Take what you wish—one talent, two, three; only bring back the words that shall win favour;' and Hasdrubal added: 'And harken! lord; if you win not favour, we shall yet march, and peradventure you shall come with us—if they drive not the nails too deep;' but there was an outcry at this, for they trembled lest Melkarth should smite them, and Hasdrubal spoke again, grumbling: 'Ah, masters, you have not seen soldiers as I have seen them, becoming bloated with wine and food, and soft in the arms of courtesans;' but Hannibal interrupted him, crying out to me again: 'Go!—go! There is little time for the march, and it may be we are already too late. Go and do all things so that the lord, Baal-Melkarth, shall favour us.' So I went out, and, having taken their talents, I am here. This old sheep has disgorged another talent together with gems. Therefore come now and we shall escape hence."